Well, I arrived yesterday afternoon, Thursday, in Rathfarnham, County Dublin. I'm staying in a family homestay and my host is Sandra. Sandra's got a 9 year old son named Flynn and a grey Scottish Terrier named Gandalf. She also hosts a 13 year old boy, Fran, who has been studying English the last year at the local school, and a Phd candidate, Camilla, who is getting her doctorate in Marine Biology at University College Dublin.
So far Sandra's been a very gracious host. She took me for a drive around the immediate area in Rathfarnham so I could see where the bus stop was and the main street in the old Rathfarnham Village where the nearby shops are. Also where the nearest shopping center was that had a big grocery store (Tesco). We also drove by the Garda station and a couple of the nearby parks before heading back. Later in the evening we all went out to dinner at Johnnie Foxes, https://www.jfp.ie/, which is not far from here, a short drive south in the Dublin Mountains.
On the way there she pulled over so we could get a view of the city from the Dublin Mountains. It's a bit hard to make anything out in this picture, other than Howth hill, in the back towards the right by the water.
This is Johnnie Foxes, 'The Highest Pub in Ireland', my friend, Keith Thompson, took a few of us there last year before I left Dublin. Unfortunately, Keith is travelling in Asia this year, I think he's in Thailand now, so we won't meet up. Johnnie Foxes is a real hoot. It's kind of an Irish version of Hee-Haw, it's so over-the-top corny that it has it's own kind of authenticity. Plus the musicians who come to their 'Hooley Nights' are really talented locals who play 'trad' (traditional) music, which I love.
This is the Independent Colleges building on Dawson Street where International House has its classes and where I'll be teaching. This morning I needed to go there to drop a form off to the Director of Studies and ask a few questions. I also got a chance to meet up with some of the people who did our training last year, Patricia and Allison, and I had a nice long chat with our other trainer Susie, known to her Facebook friends as Susie Celta.
During my afternoon in Dublin I wandered around a bit and as I did I saw some posters up for 'Nora Barnacle', https://www.nch.ie/Online/Press-Nora-Barnacle, a musical production that will be playing on Bloomsday (June 16th) at the National Concert Hall, pictured above. So I went down to the concert hall to see how much the tickets were. They were only 20 euro for a seat on the floor only four rows from the stage. This for a world premiere of a new work by an Irish Composer about James Joyce's common-law wife, in Dublin on Bloomsday. Toto, I have a feeling we're not in New York anymore. So, yeah, I got a ticket, I was planning on being in Dublin for Bloomsday anyway, hopefully the music isn't too terrible.
During my stay here I'm going to be visiting a lot of Joyce sites, and will be posting on them. So I'll have plenty to say about poor Nora. That guy was not a very good husband.
I cut back through Stephen's Green after leaving the concert hall on my way back to Dawson Street. I had forgotten to ask Carmel, the D.O.S. at International House a couple of questions and so headed back there.
She was out to lunch so to kill a half an hour I went to Sweny's Chemist. This was a drugstore back in 1904 and is a scene in Ulysses, the Lotus Eaters episode, where Leopold Bloom goes to by some lotion his wife asked him to get. They have to make it up, so he promises to come back later, but never does. In the meantime he buys some lemon soap.
The store is now a used bookstore where Joyce fanatics come to participate in readings from his works. As I walked in there were four of them reading 'An Encounter', one of the short stories in Dubliners. In addition to the used books there are some souvenirs for sale, and you can buy a bar of lemon soap.
The walk from Rathfarnham to Dawson street took me two hours, so I don't think I'll be doing that to get to work in the morning. For the time being I will take the bus. But I did walk back along the R114 this afternoon. I stopped here on the road, a little more than a mile from Sandra's house to take a picture of the sign and the Dublin Mountains in the background.
Here's Willbrook Lawns the street I'm staying on. To me it looks like a typical suburb you might find on Long Island.
About 10 minutes walk from the house is the old Rathfarnham Village main street, called coincidentally, Main Street. Among other things there's a Centra (convenience store), a couple of Chinese takeaways, an Indian takeaway, a Chipper (fish and chip shop), and a good delicatessen.
About 20 - 25 minutes walk is the strip mall where the Tesco's is. There's also a dry cleaners and a barbers as well as a few other stores. Again, looking at it in this picture it kind of looks like Long Island. So there's not too much culture shock going on.
Well, I'm back to Galway tomorrow for at least a couple of days. I'll be in touch,
Luke
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